Discrimination against women is common in the United States. USA Today reported on January 6, 2003 that women hold merely 14 percent of seats in Congress. According to a survey report released by researchers at Rutgers university, discrimination against ethnic minorities was found in one third of business firms in the United States, and discrimination against women was reported in one fourth of 200,000 firms. In hospitals, shops, restaurants and bars, women of African, Latin American and Asian descent made up 70 percent of those who have been hurt.

American women are likely to become victims of crimes and violence. A study report published by the Harvard School of Public Health on April 17, 2002 said that American females are at the highest risk of murder, and the US female homicide victimization rate is 5 times that of all the other high income countries combined. The United States accounts for 70 percent of all female homicides in the 25 high income countries, and 4,400 American females are murdered each year, with about half by firearms.

American women are also likely to become victims of sexual assaults. In 2002, several scandals of sexual assaults on women byclergies were exposed. According to reports, over the past five years, in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas, and Wisconsin, a number of faith healing-related sexual assaults were exposed, with some faith healers found to have raped women during the therapy.

Police and public prosecutors believe that hundreds of women in Los Angeles and other places were sexually abused when they sought help from faith healers (March 13, 2002, L.A. Times). Agence France Presse (AFP) reported that a survey conducted by researchers at St. Louis University in 1996 but kept under wraps after completion shows that about 40 percent of American Catholic nuns (nearly 35,000) have been sexually abused, often at the hands of a priest or another nun. (Jan. 5, 2003, Washington, AFP).

American children often fall victim to domestic violence, social crimes, their parents' divorces, and abandonment. Accordingto a study published by researchers at Harvard University in 2002,in American states and regions with high gun ownership, children have more chances to be murdered, to commit suicide or to meet accidental death. Between 1988 and 1997, a total of 6,817 children,aged 5-14, were shot to death in the 50 states of the United States (Boston, Feb. 28, 2002, Reuters).

Young girls missing and the kidnapping of children are frequent.Statistics show that in the United States, 58,000 children were kidnapped by people other than their families each year, and 40 percent of them were slain in the end. Another 200,000 children were kidnapped by their family members, mostly for the right of custody (Washington, Aug. 6, 2002, Xinhua News Agency).

In 2002, a series of scandals of sexual assaults on children by Catholic clergies were exposed. An article titled "Sins of the Fathers" published by the Newsweek magazine on March 4, 2002 reported that the child-sexual-abuse settlements may have cost the American church one billion U.S. dollars during the 1986-1996 period. Some 80 priests have been accused of sexually abusing children, with one said to have assaulted more than 100 children over the past 40 years.

The Sun newspaper reported on April 29, 2002 that there were 46,000 priests in the United States, and in the past 18 years at least 1,500 had been charged (Sun, Apr. 29, 2002). According to the newspaper Christian Science Monitor, the targets of sex-related crimes committed by American clergies were mostly children, and since 1985 over 70 clergies and priests were imprisoned for molestation of children (Christian Science Monitor, March 21, 2002).

Many children have encountered serious difficulties in their life, medical treatment and education, and many of them have not received parental love and care. According to a report published by the Public Policy Institute of California in November 2002, 20 percent of Californian children aged under 5 years live in poverty,compared with the national average of 15 percent. The New York Times reported last July that the proportion of American children who grow up in parentless families is increasing, from the previous 7.5 percent to the present 16.1 percent.

The non-governmental Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children says in its 2002 report that nearly 5,000 children were detained every year by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service for entering the United States illegally. Their average age is 15 years, with the youngest only one and a half years.

Most of these children did not have other criminal records except illegal entry. However, over 30 percent of these children were commingled with young offenders, handcuffed and shackled, sent to prisons or detained in warehouses with very poor safety conditions.